Usually, automatic machines for packaging/making filter bags comprise a plurality of operating stations located one after the other along respective production lines where the filter bags are made, each filter bag containing a charge of infusion product enclosed in a chamber of the filter bag.
Depending on the type of product and machine, the filter bags may have one or two chambers and may be associated, using any of several known methods (such as knotting, heat-sealing or application of heat-sealable stamp) with a tie string that connects the filter bag to a tag joined to the free end of the string in any of several different ways (for example, knotting, heat-sealing or application of a stamp).
The tie string and tag are placed on the filter bag (for example, wound around the filter bag or placed between the two chambers) to form a product that is ready to be grouped and suitably stacked in the area at the end of the production line where there is a filter bag stacking station, usually followed by a final packaging station which places the stacks or groups of stacks of filter bags in suitable containers or cartons. In many cases, before the filter bags are stacked, they are overwrapped with individual wrappers, each suitably folded into the shape of a U around a filter bag and sealed to form the typical envelope-like packet containing the filter bag.
At present, depending on circumstances and on the place where the tea-bag making machine is to be used, especially if low-cost labour is available, manufacturers of automatic tea-bag machinery are opting more and more for “simplified” solutions, where the filter bags are packaged manually, thus avoiding the need to provide machines with automated end-of-line packaging stations and thus reducing costs and saving factory floor space.
For this purpose, the tea bag malting machine must be provided with an end-of-line station designed to feed out the filter bags (with or without overwrap) at a regular rate, in succession, at some distance from the machine, and in such a way that production operators can easily pick them up manually.
In addition to this, the outgoing filter bags must be divided up into well-defined successive groups along the feed line of the end-of-line station (each group containing a predetermined number of filter bags which may, however, be changed when necessary), so that the operator can pick them up easily and without hesitation, knowing exactly that the groups contain the right number of filter bags to be placed in the cartons.
The Applicant's aim was therefore to design an automatic machine for malting filter bags for infusions products, whose structure comprises an end section with a product outfeed station adapted to form groups containing predetermined numbers of filter bags which can be picked up manually, without altering the basic structure and productivity of the machine and maintaining the machine's high level of performance, dependability and adaptability.